How to enforce Debian's code of conduct [LWN.net]

By Jonathan Corbet
September 10, 2014

The Debian Project, like many organizations in the free-software community, has put a focused effort into improving the environment in its communications channels and at its conferences. Among other things, the project adopted a code of conduct in April; that code is expressed in simple terms of desired behavior; examples include "Be respectful" and "Assume good faith." But Debian's code, like any code, risks being ignored if there is not some sort of enforcement mechanism behind it. According to at least one project member, an incident at the recently concluded DebConf event in Portland shows that the necessary enforcement is not yet in place.

The participants in the public conversation have carefully danced around the details of the specific incident — even the name of the offending speaker only slipped out later on — but the overall shape of the complaint has become clear from details that leaked out in various messages. Portland is Linus Torvalds's home town, so it is perhaps not surprising that he was invited to do a question-and-answer session at the conference. Linus, never known for mincing his words, was in typical form for this session — though, in truth, he was more restrained than he can be. He did, however, have some strong words about the Free Software Foundation; he is, it seems, still somewhat unhappy about how the whole GPLv3 drafting process went, and he let the audience know just how unhappy he was. Those who are interested can watch the video of the talk and reach their own conclusions.

It appears that Ian Jackson was not happy with this session, seeing it as a violation of the code of conduct. He duly filed a complaint with the project's anti-harassment address, seemingly requesting a statement from the project disclaiming Linus's words and a promise to not invite Linus to future events. The person receiving the complaint forwarded it to the Debian project leader on the reasoning that the anti-harassment team had no authority to make blanket statements for the project as a whole. In the end, it appears that the team reviewed the incident and concluded that no code-of-conduct violation had taken place, so no further action was taken.

After the conference, Ian went public with a message requesting "more guidance" for the anti-harassment team; he carefully avoided discussion of what had upset him. He would like to see the creation of a document for code enforcers starting with a number of examples of various types of undesirable behavior and the appropriate response. It should, Ian said, say who is specifically responsible for dealing with incidents, especially when they happen at conferences. He asked for an explicit rule that the Debian project leader should not be involved in the handling of complaints. Finally, he wants some guidelines describing what can be done about violations from guest speakers who may have already left the event (and thus cannot be kicked out) and discussion of "the rules for data sharing with other events".

Needless to say, this missive was not well received by some members of the community; it was seen as a call for censorship by some. So some members responded in ways that, in their own right, arguably failed to meet the code of conduct. One participant was banned from the mailing lists for his role in the discussion.

Others, though, took the request seriously, even though not all of them felt that a violation had happened in this case. Manoj Srivastava suggested that some sort of enforcement was necessary if the project actually means what it says about the environment it wants. Otherwise, he said, "we should strip language out of the CoC about being respectful to people and making attendees feel welcome, to avoid giving a false impression that those things are actually important and shall be enforced."

Steve Langasek, instead, argued that the project already has the tools and procedures it needs in place for dealing with incidents at conferences. The means by which complaints should be made is spelled out and the people responsible for dealing with complaints have been identified. With regard to the case where a violator has already left the conference, Steve did not think there was much to be done:

The stated purpose of the CoC is to ensure that our conference is a safe space for all members of the Debian community. In what way would a change in approach to dealing with a violation after the fact, where the offender is no longer at the conference, further that goal?

Didier Raboud said, instead, that, outside of severe incidents, the code should not be treated as a law to be enforced. Instead, it should be a guideline that all project members take to heart and try to help each other live up to.

In the end, there may only be one significant change from this event: the anti-harassment team seems likely to make a more concerted effort to communicate the results of a complaint back to the complainant. It appears that Ian felt he did not get a definitive answer back from the anti-harassment team; that did not help his overall feeling about how the issue was resolved.

The real truth of the matter is that the project's new code of conduct has not yet been seriously tested; the incident at DebConf Portland looks like more of a false alarm. As was seen at LCA 2011 or PyCon 2013, an incident that forces a high-profile enforcement action tends to leave a fair amount of controversy and bad feelings in its wake. Human nature being what it is, chances are that Debian will have to deal with such an incident sooner or later. So a discussion now of how the project should respond makes sense; it may help to avoid a rather less pleasant discussion in a future year. Even if the discussion appears to have few useful outcomes now, it should have succeeded in getting project members to think about how they want their code enforced.

to post comments

Better video link?

Posted Sep 11, 2014 18:30 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (2 responses)

The video link appears to be slashdotted (or LWN'd). I found another copy of the video here.

Better video link?

Posted Sep 11, 2014 20:59 UTC (Thu) by ay (guest, #79347) [Link]

The video is also on youtube, I was able to watch the whole thing without streaming problems.

That video made me respect Linus even more, he did a fantastic job answering both reasonable and absolutely stupid questions, things like "why do you undermine GPL3 and can we get you to stop?" and was actually very polite and diplomatic with that one. He has clearly stated several times that he cares about "I give you this code, you give back your changes" and not the sneakier bits put in to GPL3 and what vendors do with hardware -- he would like them to not tivoize the hardware but doesn't feel that the license needs to make that explicit.

One of the questions wasn't even a question but was instead a complaint about how he treats people on the LKML, to which he had a very honest and reasonable response about how the problem comes when people expect absolute respect whereas he believes that respect is earned.

He also had good points about why distributions' ABI and userspace packaging kind of suck and there was some good discussion about it. I suspect that Debian people didn't like hearing it but yes, the situation sucks, and he has direct experience with it on subsurface and was able to provide that in his answers.

If anything, some of the crowd were downright rude and disrespectful. I don't think that Linus did anything wrong aside from not reading their conference guidelines -- and he admitted right away that he hadn't read them.

Better video link?

Posted Sep 12, 2014 7:55 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

The link you found is the official location for DebConf video. I wonder how the other link was found...

Watched the video

Posted Sep 11, 2014 19:43 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

I watched the whole video. There was some colorful language and Linus didn't back down for being quite rude to someone on a mailing list, but honestly I can't see any Code of Conduct violation. I think whoever filed the violation was a bit too sensitive.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 1:00 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

The video is worth looking at. Especially the part where he explains the one hard rule of Linux: »Do. Not. Break. The. ABI.« and made the very good complaint that that rule is not followed by anybody who does user-space development.

Also, I'm not a Debian dev, but -- whoever sees his talk as a violation of some code of conduct -- for me, any conduct that this talk violates is suspicious. Granted, Linus is opinionated, shows disagreement in some topics, but still is respectful to the persons who have different opinions. (Actually, the questioneers were sometimes more rude than he ever was. Was that topic of the complaint as well?) If a code of conduct means that one is not allowed to voice one's opinion in that way, that's not a good one.

What the article didn't explore: What's Ian Jackson's stand on GPLv3? Does he has a strong opinion on it? How objective is he in that case?

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 1:54 UTC (Fri) by parcs (guest, #71985) [Link] (30 responses)

Political correctness gone mad.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 16:13 UTC (Fri) by daney (guest, #24551) [Link] (27 responses)

Indeed.

The Guy attacks Linus for being wrong (albeit without using vulgarities) and demands that he change his opinion. Then, when Linus explains his position and declines to change, The Guy claims that he was made to feel uncomfortable, which is a violation of the CoC?

Surely The Guy himself should be banned because he implied that Linus has an incorrect opinion, which shows disrespect and is contrary to the very same CoC.

How can a conference possibly be welcoming and inclusive, if situations like this are allowed to go unpunished?

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 18:23 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (1 responses)

It's not clear to me what the original complaint alleges. But if the complaint is that Linus used harsh language on the mailing list, then this is a complete WTF. The alleged disrespect didn't happen at the conference, but on a mailing list months earlier to which Debian's CoC does not apply.

It is way beyond the scope of any code of conduct to dig up past behavior that didn't even occur in a Debian setting.

The only other thing I can think of is that Linus let slip a "fucking" in his talk. But it was in the context of expressing frustration at a state of affairs; it wasn't directed at any particular person.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 18:47 UTC (Fri) by daney (guest, #24551) [Link]

One can only speculate, but it may have been referring to FSF as "crazy" and "dishonest". Not vulgar, but ...

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 13, 2014 12:04 UTC (Sat) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (24 responses)

The Guy claims that he was made to feel uncomfortable, which is a violation of the CoC?

I hope the popular insanity of externalizing responsibility for emotional states burn itself out before it destroys the software industry and any other industry it touches.

There's no possible way to enforce a "don't make other people feel bad" rule because anyone can claim that any arbitrary action made them feel bad and there's no way to falsify the claim.

Even worse, people can easily find themselves in a situation of limited choices where every possible action will potentially make some individual or group feel bad.

What actually happens in practice, is that some individuals and groups are more equal than others and their claims of being made to feel bad are taken seriously while anyone with an opposite opinion is quietly ignored.

Hope aside, I'm not particularly optimistic about the future of the software industry in the West, because it appears to be intent on committing suicide.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 13, 2014 15:30 UTC (Sat) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (20 responses)

> I hope the popular insanity of externalizing responsibility for emotional states burn itself out

I used to think like myself but as I've learned more about people I've had to come to different logical conclusions.

> There's no possible way to enforce a "don't make other people feel bad" rule because anyone can claim that any arbitrary action made them feel bad and there's no way to falsify the claim.

If that were the case that might be bad but that is not what a Code of Conduct should do and I don't think that's what is implemented here. You might see that kind of misbehavior either from very young people who don't know their butt from a hole in the ground or very manipulative people who see every rule as a way to get advantage over others.

> Even worse, people can easily find themselves in a situation of limited choices where every possible action will potentially make some individual or group feel bad.

I don't think that is what really happens in practice, unless you let your Code of Conduct enforcement be taken over by an in-group of a**holes, but then those kinds of people would take any kind of power and use it to dominate their peers, so this is more about the individual than the rules themselves.

> What actually happens in practice, is that some individuals and groups are more equal than others and their claims of being made to feel bad are taken seriously while anyone with an opposite opinion is quietly ignored.

What actually exists in the real world is that some groups _are_ "more equal than others" in a million different ways, so there really isn't a need to be overly sensitive to the dominant group, they have a lot of advantage and they are going to be fine, false equivalency between the dominant powerful group and a disadvantaged group is by definition a disadvantage to the non-dominant group. It's a way of maintaining an unequal status quo and sounding fair-minded while doing it. The false equivalency is often how someone who is fair-minded can be pulled into logical conclusions that don't actually make sense in the wider context.

There was a great analogy made recently about this class of issue that likened being in a non-dominant group to being a bicyclist on the road. While technically, legally, a bicyclist is equal on the road to a car, in practice everything is geared toward the needs of the car and the bicyclist is a second class user of the roads. As a bicyclist you get to experience in a limited way some of the same dynamic that other people get in other contexts, you get street harassment where a driver will swerve to splash you or scream at you for no reason and benign neglect where people will pass you dangerously close, dangerous for you not them as they are in a car and are oblivious, or box you into a dangerous situation like a pothole or roadkill, not because they are bad people and should be punished but because these issues don't affect them from their position of power and safety.

So I see this as a way to combat some of the casual racism and sexism we see in our industry, people who make stupid technical decisions are not a protected class 8-)

> Hope aside, I'm not particularly optimistic about the future of the software industry in the West, because it appears to be intent on committing suicide.

I don't think you are likely to see a downswing in productivity due to the implementation of decent Codes of Conduct, appropriate for the culture of each group, if anything less distraction due to inter-personal conflict, because you have a way to systematically resolve them, will help keep and grow maintainers where in other cases they would just leave, or never join in the first place.

You can look at what happened here to see the process working as designed, someone made a complaint, others who are democratic representatives of the whole group reviewed the complaint and didn't find sufficient merit (as many people here have confirmed with their own viewing) so the issue was dropped.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 13, 2014 18:55 UTC (Sat) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (11 responses)

What actually exists in the real world is that some groups _are_ "more equal than others" in a million different ways, so there really isn't a need to be overly sensitive to the dominant group, they have a lot of advantage and they are going to be fine, false equivalency between the dominant powerful group and a disadvantaged group is by definition a disadvantage to the non-dominant group. It's a way of maintaining an unequal status quo and sounding fair-minded while doing it. The false equivalency is often how someone who is fair-minded can be pulled into logical conclusions that don't actually make sense in the wider context.

And there's that insanity I was talking about.

Here's why it's insane: there's no way to falsify any of the assertions you're talking about. Because of that it's all sophistry.

Pick your favourite "disadvantaged group". How do you know they are disadvantaged? Does there exist any evidence that would indicate they are no longer disadvantaged? Is there a null hypothesis you can test against to determine whether or not some group who claims to be a member of a disadvantaged actually is?

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 2:39 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (10 responses)

> How do you know they are disadvantaged?

Because of overwhelming evidence and analysis which doesn't support any other conclusion as likely. If you are truly uninformed on these issues then there exist entire fields of study dedicated to mapping out and quantifying the cognitive defects which result in racism, sexism, and the general in vs. out group dynamics which fuel these power imbalances. If you are willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads then you can have a better understanding of the world, even putting in the effort to correct for your own cognitive defects when you find them, which leads to better outcomes for everyone.

I don't have a good link for a beginner-level summary of the relevant research but some of the issues have been covered on LWN as it relates to this community, Anita Sarkeesian has done some good work recently in the field of video games, and I'm sure if you google you can start to survey the state of cognitive research, gender and racial studies, etc.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 10:12 UTC (Sun) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (9 responses)

> video games

Indeed. What is the last game you can think of without a white male as the protagonist (and usually the only one)? Tomb Raider or Metroid? OK, even granting *two* exceptions there, how about just not-white? Best I can come up with is the Civilization series (which is a cheat here since historical figures are used). /Maybe/ Gears of War, but I think Cole was a "second player" character even there. Left4Dead? Sure, but the point is that there is a *severe* misrepresentation here.

Video game characters

Posted Sep 14, 2014 11:48 UTC (Sun) by jwakely (guest, #60262) [Link]

Perfect Dark was a decent game with a female lead, and Portal and Portal 2 were excellent games with a non-sexualized female lead of unclear ethnicity! Shock horror!

GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Chinatown Wars have non-white protagonists where the character's ethnicity is significant to the plot, although often taking the form of exaggerated stereotypes like everything in the GTA universes.

But the fact I could only think of a few examples reinforces your point.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 14:00 UTC (Sun) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

I'd attach an extra proviso: "Japanese teenagers don't count, even if depicted in an art style that makes them actually look Japanese".

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 14:00 UTC (Sun) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (6 responses)

Mirror's Edge (female), Assassin's Creed III (Native American male), Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (African-French female), Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry (African-American male), Skyrim (choice of male/female, customizable characters, also allows homosexual relationships between characters), Dragon Age II & Origins (male/female, customizable characters, also allows homosexual relationships between characters), Fallout 3 & New Vegas (male/female, customizable characters -- if I remember correctly Fallout: New Vegas has a opportunity for a homosexual encounter), Borderlands & Borderlands 2 (allows you to play as a female, though most of the character classes are male -- in Borderlands the female is the most powerful by far, in Borderlands 2 that depends more on your style of play), Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2, XIII-3 (female), Remember Me (female), ...

Seems a lot of the games I play either star someone else than a stereotypical while male, or allows you to freely design your character.

All of that said, your basic point is of course correct.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 14:22 UTC (Sun) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (4 responses)

Do the freeform character games account for your choices? For example, in Fallout 3, if you make yourself black, does your father's model change accordingly? Or do they imply an interracial marriage? I don't remember; it's an FPS and you never see after you get a helmet anyways and as such I just hit "OK" on such things rather than faffing about with all the tweaks.

Other than that, allowing homosexual encounters is something that offsets it a bit, but as long as a game just has such choice as a window dressing, I don't know how much I'd count those games.

I was not aware how diverse the Assassin's Creed characters were though; not my kind of game really, so I've passed them over for the most part. It's good to hear at least one studio doing so, but I wonder how much is due to the historical contexts of the game (like Civilization) rather than a conscious choice (like gender would still be in such a case). Was Assassin's Creed's playable character Arabic as well (which reminds me of Prince of Persia)?

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 14:56 UTC (Sun) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (2 responses)

Hmmm, good question. I'm afraid I cannot answer your question about Fallout 3 parentage... As far as it being an FPS, you can actually switch to third person mode, and it's quite useful when trying to balance on edges (useful when trying to reach seemingly out of reach locations that require delicate precision).

As for Assassin's Creed III (set before, during and after the revolution) and IV (set during the golden era of piracy), the choice to make the main character a native American definitely wasn't forced by the historical context. AC: Freedom Call is about slavery, so the choice to use an African-American comes from the historical context, but nothing in the main story line forced the game creators to choose that story line in the first place.

And the playable character in AC1 is, I guess (I have to admit that I started with AC2, after being warned that the controls in AC1 were rather finicky), Arabic.

As for the homosexual encounters, at least in Dragon Age it's far from window dressing -- relationships are quite deeply embedded in the game, characters change their behaviour towards you depending on how you interact with them, and the company that created it have been quite clear that people who don't like the fact that the game lets you choose your own sexuality are free to play other games instead.

If I'm not all wrong the Mass Effect games (same studio) also allow for homosexual relationships and allows you to play as a female. I'm not 100% sure though, since I haven't played any of those games.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 15:17 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

> If I'm not all wrong the Mass Effect games (same studio) also allow for homosexual relationships and allows you to play as a female. I'm not 100% sure though, since I haven't played any of those games.

In Mass Effect you can form a romantic relationship, or not, with any one of a handful of your party members which are human male, female or alien. I would recommend playing as the female main player character as Jennifer Hale does a great job acting the role, makes you enthusiastic for going on suicide missions 8-)

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 17:03 UTC (Sun) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link]

If she does a great job, wouldn't you wanna survive rather than go on suicide missions? :P

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 18, 2014 3:02 UTC (Thu) by lordsutch (guest, #53) [Link]

My recollection (although it's been years since I played the game) is that Fallout 3 does adjust the appearance of your father's character based on the skin tone and other features you choose for your character.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 18, 2014 5:31 UTC (Thu) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link]

Ahhh, just thought of another great game starring a female: Beyond: Two Souls.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 18:13 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> While technically, legally, a bicyclist is equal on the road to a car, in practice everything is geared toward the needs of the car and the bicyclist is a second class user of the roads.

Yes: bicyclists and car drivers are equal with the respect to the rules of the... car.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 15, 2014 18:29 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (6 responses)

I'm fine with an anti-harassment, anti-discrimination code of conduct. But I'm completely at a loss to find a single thing in the video of Linus's talk that could remotely be considered a violation of a reasonable code of conduct. I wish we would know exactly what the original complaint was to clear things up.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 15, 2014 19:50 UTC (Mon) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (5 responses)

Anybody can complain about anything, they have the freedom to do so, but the code of conduct committee can and should exercise judgement about whether a complaint is worth taking action on, and in this case I believe they decided that no enforcement action was called for.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 16, 2014 13:46 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

they decided that no enforcement action was called for.

I see. Then I think the Debian Code of Conduct Committee should insist that all complaints must be made confidentially, and that publicizing a complaint before the CoC renders a decision will automatically void the complaint. That way, we'd never have known about the original complaint and this whole tempest in a teapot wouldn't have happened.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 16, 2014 15:12 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (3 responses)

There is a case to be made for having an open process so that complaints can't just be buried, I'm not sure that a tiny number of "tempest in a teapots" are worth avoiding, I don't think they have a long term negative impact.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 16, 2014 18:10 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (1 responses)

I think you can have an open process by having the CoC committee pledge to make everything public after a decision has been rendered. And if CoC committee reneges, there's nothing to stop the original complainant from going public at that point.

I think there's too much to lose and not enough to gain by making complaints public right from the very start.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 16, 2014 19:33 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> I think you can have an open process by having the CoC committee pledge to make everything public after a decision has been rendered.

You might be right, that could be a good compromise.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 16, 2014 18:11 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Sorry, just to add one thing: Making a complaint public right from the start can also cause real damage. For example, if someone alleges sexual misconduct which is later proven to be false, the mere allegations can continue to haunt the accused later on.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Oct 3, 2014 3:33 UTC (Fri) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (2 responses)

Hope aside, I'm not particularly optimistic about the future of the software industry in the West, because it appears to be intent on committing suicide.

Another otherwise functional mind succumbs:

http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/32778.html

Reminds me of something I read on Slashdot today:

The SJW movement refers to large groups of people who are outsiders wading into a conflict without knowing anything about the people involved, dealing solely with stereotypes. In this case, the SJW would assume the woman is automatically correct and all the men involved are misogynistic gamer assholes. They will throw straw-man insults and arguments at the person they have stereotyped, try to ruin reputations and careers, and basically shit on everything until the discussion area is a husk. It's an ill-informed lynch mob howling for justice.

It's very clear that an extremely virulent mind virus has infected the software industry. It's a species of identity politics. Facts don't matter - belonging to the "right" group matters. If "our team" takes certain stands, then we must take those same stands. If somebody says something that "our team" doesn't like, then we must oppose it regardless of content, because fitting in with the group is more important than reality or truth.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Oct 3, 2014 23:29 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

So software developers are allowed to take ethical stances on software (not developing software for Apple or Microsoft), but not political matters? Seems silly.

From the glimpses I've seen of the gamergate fiasco is that the "SJW" side is a lot less violent and caustic than the other side (is there a name for them? "Jerks" or "asshats" sounds good to me). The jerks also seem incapable of accepting any flaws in the products and companies they fanboi for regardless of how tactless they may be (in details or with broad strokes) because of…well whatever reason; I stopped playing multiplayer games long ago unless I knew the people already. Way too many people that are just, basically, appalling in their behavior. Since when is the threat of rape, torture, or death ever a justifiable and reasonable reaction to an analysis of games as a whole?

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Oct 4, 2014 3:33 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

> From the glimpses I've seen of the gamergate fiasco is that the "SJW" side is a lot less violent and caustic than the other side

Well, that depends who you define the "other side as"

If you define it as the (relatively) small number of Idiots who are making threats, then no, they are not worse.

If however, you define the "other side" as the entire gaming community, or even the entire male population of the gaming community, then no, the SJW side is being far more caustic.

I don't think that there is anyone claiming that threats are good or acceptable, and (assuming the threats are real), the police should be called in to deal with them.

But many of the SJW side are saying that the "other side" is the entire gaming community. At that point it's a different discussion.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 13, 2014 10:17 UTC (Sat) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link] (1 responses)

A cynic might wonder if the complaint was an honest one or intended to undermine the Code of Conduct.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 15, 2014 7:47 UTC (Mon) by palmer_eldritch (guest, #95160) [Link]

Come on, we all know Ian Jackson wouldn't stoop to such tactics.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 7:50 UTC (Fri) by mlankhorst (subscriber, #52260) [Link]

I would like to note that the person banned was just a troll who pronounced CoC phonetically as a way of swearing, it wasn't a result of tensions getting high.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 15:09 UTC (Fri) by knewt (subscriber, #32124) [Link]

Hmm. Finally got around to watching this today, and honestly don't see the problem? Quite mild for Linus if anything, I thought.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 12, 2014 20:32 UTC (Fri) by Jandar (subscriber, #85683) [Link] (2 responses)

Linus has admitted to be an abrasive person, but in this session nothing of it came into effect. In no case he was less polite to the attendant crowd than the questioner to him.

Without an exact part specified as the incident, this has no real significance, because arguing over something is meaningless if one doesn't know what this something is. Maybe for Ian Jackson it's obvious but obviously for others not.

In my mind the "wrong kind of mushrooms" have been eaten by those who have seen harassment from Linus in this video.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 18:20 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

> Without an exact part specified as the incident,

Wait... do we have to watch the whole video? Oh my... this is very disappointing, I was looking forward to see some Nvidia finger or something equally cool in less than 20 seconds of my time.

> this has no real significance, because arguing over something is meaningless if one doesn't know what this something is.

Indeed...

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 16, 2014 18:12 UTC (Tue) by Jandar (subscriber, #85683) [Link]

> Wait... do we have to watch the whole video? Oh my... this is very disappointing, I was looking forward to see some Nvidia finger or something equally cool in less than 20 seconds of my time.

I have watched the complete video, have I said otherwise? The video was interesting except for the people attacking Linus while hiding behind language like "a person" instead of "you".

To come back to my question: where was the scene Linus harassing anyone? Apart from being sarcastic, could you provide data?

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 13, 2014 20:50 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (6 responses)

I'm of the opinion that the Debian CoC itself is in the wrong — it has done nothing to neutralize Ian Jackson's persistently disrespectful and aggressive behaviour.

His constant abuses of process during the init systems debate should have been a clear red flag, and after this attack I dare say he's off his rocker.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 14, 2014 2:44 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (5 responses)

You don't necessarily need a big dramatic dressing down or public apology to effect change, in fact this is often counter productive as it makes a martyr of the bad actor. If Ian Jackson's behavior is truly a problem than he will marginalize himself by continuing to be disrespectful and abuse process.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 18, 2014 16:23 UTC (Thu) by quartz (guest, #37351) [Link] (4 responses)

Wait, you mean people should not take bad behaviour from Linus, but they should take (disruptive) bad behaviour from Ian?

Why not "If Linus's behavior is truly a problem than he will marginalize himself by continuing to be disrespectful and abuse process."?

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 18, 2014 19:23 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (3 responses)

The difference here is that Linus isn't asking someone else to enforce some sort of behavior standard using a grievance process, he is being frank with his opinions, occasionally hyperbolic, brusque but not generally disrespectful. If he is being unreasonable and there are too many personality conflicts then eventually the community will spit him out and move on without him, as we've seen with plenty of other large projects in the past.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 19, 2014 14:19 UTC (Fri) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (2 responses)

It works the other way around as well.

Linus could and probably does not care what the Debian and it's community thinks of his personality and simply wont attend any of their events again allowing them to deal with their own drama.

Seriously would you attend an event where your own individuality is under constant scrutiny by those hosting the event or the community surrounding it and you have to live in the fear by saying the wrong joke or the wrong words which might result in you hurting someones "feelings" forcing you to become someone you are not instead of allowing you freely to be the person you are?

Complaint procedure with anti-harassment policy which then is immediately escalated to the local authorities should such an incident take place at the event should be all that is needed.

Anything beyond that and you have stupidity with censorship and feelings as it's weapons tromping reason and common sense...

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 19, 2014 17:57 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

> you have to live in the fear by saying the wrong joke or the wrong words

I don't think Linus lives in fear of saying the wrong thing at conferences, but he also is not rude or insulting to people without a purpose, he couldn't be as successful as he is if he was just arbitrarily a jerk to everyone.

> your own individuality is under constant scrutiny
> hurting someones "feelings" forcing you to become someone you are not instead of allowing you freely to be the person you are

Being a free person is not freedom from responsibility and everyone is judged on their interactions with others, the more of a jerk you are outside of societal norms the more marginalized you become. Even Linus has limits on his behavior, if he started flaming everyone unfairly who submitted patches, they would stop sending patches to him and someone else's kernel tree would become definitive. There is also a fundamental difference between attacking the quality of some work and personally attacking the person who did the work, the first is un-controversial and is often positive while the second is not.

How to enforce Debian's code of conduct

Posted Sep 19, 2014 23:30 UTC (Fri) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link]

I did not specifically say that Linus himself was living in fear quite the contrary and "social norms" are set by the majority at any given time which more often than not driven by peoples emotions.

Bottom line extremist ( which are driven by their emotions ) in either direction is bad.